


The Silver Nef

by FaerieChild



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 17:45:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17064278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaerieChild/pseuds/FaerieChild
Summary: A moment between Lord John and William. Mostly canon compliant. (Cross-posting as a back up).





	The Silver Nef

**Author's Note:**

> I was visiting a museum a little while ago when I encountered a magnificent silver ship, which turned out to be a historic table centrepiece known as a Nef. They were rather out of fashion at the time Outlander is set but with the wonders of artistic license and some encouragement this story developed. This story is not new but I realised I hadn't uploaded it to AO3 so I'm doing that now.

The Silver Nef 

William picked up a brussel sprout and pulled the silver nef centrepiece back towards him. The brussel sprouts became canonballs that William mimicked being launched from the ship’s canons across the room. With sound effects.

“William, if you don’t stop that this minute you will be sent to bed without anymore supper!”

Lord John put down his silver cutlery sharply and stared at his step son and tried to ignore the way his heart thumped every time, even now, he looked at James Fraser’s son. “William? What did we agree about the silverware?”

Williams brow furrowed, his eyes turned dark and surly. “One doesn’t play with the silverware at the table.”

“And the Nef?”

“And I’ve not to reenact sea battles with the centrepiece.” William grumbled. He felt his step father’s eyes on him and shifted uncomfortably. “Or the sinking of the Mary Rose?” William tailed off.

John picked up his cutlery and resumed eating. “Quite.”

“How about Carthage?”

“No.”

William thought hard for a moment. “Troy?”

John put down his silverware again. “Absolutely not.” For the briefest of moments frustration flared within him and then he found himself laughing as he thought of all the clever mental wordplay the prisoner known as Mac Dubh had used in the early days of their acquaintance as prisoner and warden. Careful answers, half truths and omissions. “You are most certainly your father’s son. If you’re feeling this wiley we shall play chess after dinner.”

William groaned dramatically and, perhaps in some effort to distract his step-father from the thought of chess, started rattling away about the horses and the stables and how his riding was coming along and what the grooms were up to and which mares were pregnant and how the head groom still wouldn’t let him near the stallion.

“Quite right too,” John agreed. “Stallions are wildly unpredictable. You know much better than to be down that end of the stables. What’s put you in this mood tonight.”

“Nothing.”

“Did something happen today?”

William fingered the rosary around his neck. Everyone thought he was too young to remember but he wasn’t. Well, he didn’t remember his parents obviously. He was too young to remember his mother dying. Or his father. But he remembered the exact day Mac had left. They had prayed together and lit a candle and William had learned about being a papist and Saint Anthony and rosaries. Mother Isobel was gone too now. “Are you sure Mother Isobel has gone to heaven?”

Grief filled John and not just for his own loss. His heart clenched at the deep well of sadness and loss in such youthful eyes. The young man before him might be just about the richest man in the land, but for a boy so young he had lost so many and all the money in the world could not bring them back.

“That’s right, William. Mother Isobel went to heaven. We will,” John’s voice wavered and he took in a deep breath and then smiled, sadly. “We will visit her grave after church tomorrow.”

William pushed his food around his plate.

“I know you’re upset. But please do try and eat something.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Yes you are. I want you to eat at least one more slice of beef before you leave the table. And five sprouts.”

William stared at the silver boat in front of him. He would much rather be throwing sprouts right now than eating them. With a great show of reluctance he cut off a piece of beef and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Do you remember Mac?”

“Don’t eat with your mouth full, William. Yes, of course I remember him.”

John’s heart thudded in his chest again and his throat went very dry. James Alexander Malcolm ‘MacDubh’ MacKenzie Fraser. Every time John looked at William he was reminded. It was why John felt so blessed to have the honour of raising William. Everywhere he went, he had a piece of Jamie in his life. Still, even now, he got butterflies just thinking about the man. John wondered whether he should mention the rosary that William never took off. Or the childish attempts at being a ‘papist’ like Mac was, in spite of everyone involved in William’s upbringing being respectable followers of the Established Church. John recalled one particularly memorable incident with candles that had nearly set both the drapes and the family bible alight.

He took a moment and then cleared his throat. “Yes. You were quite fond of the man, as I recall.”

“Why did Mac leave?”

“Servants leave all the time, William.” John had spent the entire meal trying to be imperious, trying to be William’s father. It wasn’t working and it didn’t suit him.

John sighed and put down his cutlery one last time, sliding the implements together on the plate before him. “We were all fond of Mac, as you called him.” Warmth filled John at the thought of William’s father. His son was so like him. He had the same faults. The same kindnesses. The same gift with horses. “And, like you, Mac too lost family.”

“Mac always understood.”

“I think he would be very proud of you.”

“Is he in Heaven, Papa? Like Mother and Father and Mother Isobel? Should I pray for him?”

“Mac? Goodness, no he’s not dead. He lives in the Americas now. The colonies.”

William’s eyes widened, eyes locked on his father. Then he remembered that he didn’t like Mac because Mac left and had abandoned him like everyone else.

“Of course, I’ll have to leave for the Colonies soon myself,” John remarked casually. “I was thinking, actually, you are old enough to accompany me now.”

William ignored his step father and waved over a servant to take his plate. John signalled for the servant to do no such thing and did not miss the roll of footman’s eyes at the constant to-ing and fro-ing of having a young Lord in charge with a Guardian playing catch up. Lord John was too indulgent to the boy by half, as far as most of below stairs was concerned.

John, missing nothing, pointed towards William’s plate. William stared at his beef and ignored it.

“We could visit, I suppose. It is a little out of the way but once you’ve gone to the bother of crossing an ocean the rest of it becomes rather moot, doesn’t it?”

“I bet Mac doesn’t like sprouts,” William muttered.

“On the contrary. Mac was a great believer in eating vegetables.” John watched William’s expression change in the way that only a child’s could, a child who had no idea just how much their face gave away. It wouldn’t last long, the boy was growing up, but perhaps he could find a way to let Jamie see his son before he was full grown. “And beef, as it happens,” John continued mildly.

William’s fork stabbed at a sprout and he began inhaling his food.

Across the table, John’s heart thumped and his eyes smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> All puns welcome.


End file.
